Tunisians open up their houses to refugees running Libya
As soon as refugees fleeing unrest in Libya began flooding over the edge into Tunisia, Ali Ben Issi authorized up as a volunteer to help them.
Ben Issi, a twenty-year-old Tunisian student, works daily at the new transportation camp set up by the U.N. refugee agency, helping new arrivals with their passports and paperwork.
He said: “I want to help because the people of Italy are helping Tunisian refugees so I want to do the same for other people.
“I have 2 female cousins and a number of friends also helping out. There are also many, many people volunteering, giving meals, clothes, and even money.”
When he has to come back to his studies, Ali has promised to continue volunteering at week-ends for the International Organization for Migration, for as long as is necessary.
Ben Issi is one of an army of Tunisians who have become the spine of the relief effort to help up to 150,000 people who have crossed the border from Libya to Tunisia in the past week.
Aid organizations say Tunisians living in the area have been handing out food, drinks and clothing to refugees even welcoming refugees to stay in their houses, in a natural show of solidarity.
Teher Cheniti, secretary of the Tunisian Red Crescent, said: “All the families near the frontier have offered their help. Many refugee households are living with Tunisians.
“Families are automatically cooking and offering hot meals to refugees. On every corner there are people providing meals.”
The U.N. refugee agency, the Tunisian government and NGOs have been helping to evacuate as many refugees as they can to their home countries, but they can’t keep up with the average 15,000 a day pouring over the border.
The majority of those crossing the border are Egyptian migrant workers, but the Tunisian Red Crescent said it has handled people from 30 different ethnicities, such as Bangladeshis, Vietnamese, and sub-Saharan Africans.
The U.N.’s transit camp has capacity to shelter around 12,000 people, but many others are staying with local families or in public structures.
Tarek Ben Ali, working at the border in Ras Jdir for the International Organization for Migration Tunisia, said: “I have 12 volunteers under my supervision at the border showing people where they can get water, helping them make phone calls and eventually attempting to get them back to their country of origin.
“People from all different amounts of society and skills are helping out. They have a big inspiration to help. It’s part of our culture to give solidarity to people in a bad situation.
“We see many people bringing milk, bread, drinking water and food they have prepared at home.
“In the camp, if anybody doesn’t have food or a tent, people are making sure they help them.
“Tunisians are also providing free buses to get individuals to the airport.”
Despite the large efforts on the ground, aid companies say the closest town of Ben Gardane and its encircling area are at capability and more international help is needed in evacuating the workers.
Firas Kayal, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency on the Tunisian-Libyan border, said: “The situation here remains tense. There is lots of congestion on this side of the border and we are hearing that many thousands are waiting on the Libyan aspect to come through.
“The local neighborhood has been so generous in supplying food, medications and places to stay, but the capability of the local community is reaching its limit because the numbers are so huge.
“The local neighborhood has been helping them since the beginning, giving them shelter in schools, public structures and host households.
“However, we are phoning on the international neighborhood to help ease the pressure on this little border town to allow more individuals from the other side of the border to cross.”
